


Stick to the Shadows

by BlueEyesBlueHeart



Category: Banana Bus Squad
Genre: Blood, Dead Bodies™, Gore, I'll add more when appropriate, M/M, Magic AU, Murder, Shadows - Freeform, a lot of - Freeform, bad experiments, like really bad, small mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-03-20 08:37:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13713972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueEyesBlueHeart/pseuds/BlueEyesBlueHeart
Summary: Would you rather have to kill one person yourself or have their entire generation die?Would you rather kill a saviour or a soon-to-be saviour?Would you rather kill three innocent children or five random people?What happens when these questions are answered again and again and again by the same person, are they always likely to choose the same option?





	1. What Makes The World Go Round

> **Delirious.**

I felt the blood drip from my palm and knife onto the ground. I regarded the small form, covered in blood. Just a child…

“No.” I spoke to myself aloud. “Emotions cloud judgement. You will save countless lives.”

There were frantic footsteps drawing nearer, and high-pitched shouting; the mother.

I must leave. The shadows called to me, as they had done on that fateful night millennia ago. They consumed me yet again, and I was suspended in indefinite slumber until my time came again.

‘ _One soul per decade. Refuse, and kill the entire generation._ ’ The deep voice hummed. It was too low for human ears to hear. It is the rhythm that keeps the world spinning. I have learned that. They must too.

I will never again make that mistake.

I was called upon after what felt like an eternity. This time, an old woman faced with dementia and Parkinson’s disease. It's a wonder they don’t give up on her…

Well, at least now they won’t have to.

She was easy compared to some of the others. She was on the brink of death already. She saw me, shadows rolling off my shoulders and closed her eyes as if this was her chance at peace. She did not fight. I wondered whether she would have if she had known what the afterlife had in store for her.

It was not as messy as it was normally, only a constant drip onto the floor of her nursing home. I stayed for too long this time. I was mesmerised by the drops, they shined as they fell, before splatting into the puddle that was slowly getting larger. They saw. The nurses; they saw me. There were screams. I panicked and fled.

Even after a year, tales of the shadow demon overtook the news. I know this as my latest kill was that of a teenage girl, always on her phone it seemed. I know this is not much of a job, but she seemed very unprofessional, seeing as she was about to die. She exclaimed, “Oh. My. God. Georgia! I am so glad I have you here right now!”

She turned the device towards me and I saw the face of another. She was of approximately the same age. I couldn’t let a girl that young see the horrors of cold-blooded murder just yet. Especially seeing as one will be subject to eternal torment at the expense of the rest of her generation.

I lashed out with a tendril of shadows, my burden's phone was ripped out of her hand and smashed through the window of her room. She was whimpering now. I could only guess that it was because she had gazed into my eyes, it seemed to do that to people. Perhaps they see their future, in which case I do not blame them.

I try to take it easy on her, but the rhythm comes through the ground. The vibrations thrummed beneath my feet, encouraging my bloodlust. I take my knife - one fashioned out of shadows to resemble the one I used during life - and slashed across her chest. She fell to the ground on her stomach, heaving. That blow wouldn’t kill her, I knew it wouldn’t. The rhythm wanted it to last longer, but I just couldn't allow that to happen. I plunged the knife into her back which severed her spinal chord, killing her instantly.

I turned away from the body, adding the image to the catalogue that had built up in my brain for many years. I reached out for the shadows, wanting to get out, but my ears picked up a delicate plodding. There was a distinct pattern to it. A pattern that I hadn’t heard in millennia…

Everything clicked the instant the door blew open. I panicked and let go of the shadows; a really stupid thing to do in hindsight. 

I felt a familiar glow surround me. A cage of prisms of light encased me, illuminating my figure and effectively blinding me. I heard a sigh of relief before a yelp, the shadows were coming back for me tendrils trying to reach through the cage. I could feel them. I could feel the zap of power from the light as they drew back cautiously and eventually gave up.

I was suspended like I was in the abyss, but this time there was light instead of unending darkness. It was unnerving to say the least. The voice that let out a sigh of relief earlier started chanting. I recognised it as a binding incantation, it will make sure that the Caster is safe from the demon it has captured. I had heard it only twice before in my existence. Once during life and once when I stumbled across a Caster a few centuries ago whilst still in my slightly rebellious phase. That time it had been cut short unwillingly by my blade.

This time it was a precaution, not the sole incantation, it seems as if the Incantory had been extended beyond its capability since the last time I had crossed paths with a Caster.

As soon as the voice stopped its melodic chanting, I felt searing hot pain around my ankles and wrists. I cried out, it was the first time I had used my own voice in a long time, my vocal chords were scratchy, as if I were still mortal. The cry came out broken and full of pain. There was a small sound of pity from the Caster, strange…

The pain would not cease, however my brain dulled it until it became an uncomfortable throbbing.

 

* * *

 

I could only guess that we had translocated to the Garrison of Casters, as there was a temporary feeling of queasiness and then nothing, before the feeling of heavy weight. I could tell that we had translocated into the main foyer, or something similar, as there were several gasps of surprise and a noise of resentment that I could only assume was aimed at me. There were more voices, but I could only make out snippets of their conversation due to the throbbing in my brain;

“Sir, I have-” **_throb_** “…apprehended-”

“Apprehended-” **_throb_** “…you?” **_throb_**

“…suggest we-” **_throb_** “…him, her, it…” **_throb_** “-ever it is, sir?” **_throb_**

“With the oth-” **_throb_** “…unless you would-” **_throb_** “…to take _him_ off your-” **_throb_**

“NO!” This made me wince, the loud noise bringing the throbbing to an optimum. I couldn’t make out the conversation after that, though the voices dropped. Soon enough I could feel the whoosh of air on my body, indicating that I was being moved at a fast pace.

There was no way that I could tell where I was when I stopped, but it smelled dank like an underground prison. I wouldn’t put it past them to keep me here, hell, I wouldn’t put it past them to keep me in a fucking volcano.

Unexpectedly, the cage of light dropped and I fell like a sack of potatoes onto the cold hard floor, there was a scraping sound of iron on stone and I knew I was trapped. My instincts kicked in and I called out to the shadows, only for them to retreat once they came near me, sensing the binds on my body. I let out a quiet whimper of despair, do they know how many they’d kill just by keeping me here?

After lying there for a few seconds, it became apparent to me that the excruciating throbbing pain in my ankles and wrists had dulled to an ache that only just reminded me that the bonds of light were there. This must have been the direct cause of the disappearance of the cage and the darkness that now surrounded me.

However, the darkness was keeping its distance from me. The glow provided by the bands kept the darkness, illuminating me and making me visible to the naked eye. It made me uneasy, there were many eyes looking at me through the iron bars and I found the attention invasive.

I could hear small parts of conversation between the onlookers.

“It looks almost human, apart from those red triangles and the glowy blue eyes…” This came from a man that had his face pressed up against the bars, but he was tense, as if I would appear in front of him and snap his neck. His eyes locked with mine and he immediately looked away, the man next to him whacked him upside the head and whispered furiously in his ear, presumably telling him how dangerous I was, but he didn’t seem to be listening, his eyes were dark, as if witnessing something horrifying.

“This one doesn’t have a face either… but that looks like a mask, do you think the other one has a mask too?” I turned my attention to another, this statement catching me by surprise, ‘other one’? I knew that there were other demons - if that’s what they wanted to call us - but do they have another…?

 A loud voice interrupted my thought, “The shadows are trying to get near him, look!” That much was true. I could feel them, but they were creating more of a wall around me than actually touching me.

“I wonder what number he is. He’s definitely an elder though. Did you see the footage from that girl’s phone? That was some freaky shit!”

“Figures that Luke would be the one to find him, I could’ve gone!”

“No you couldn’t Brian, we all know he’s the best at the light cage thing, and besides, you can barely even light a candle.” There was an indignant squawk and I smirked slightly, I had a fondness for taking down arrogance and just from the smug facial expression of the other man that spoke, he did too.

The voices died down as the, I assume, boss came through, they parted and left a line that led the man directly to me. The man was old, not as old as myself, but at least sixty, with his arms clasped behind his back to give the impression that he was in control. His body language amused me, it was obvious that he was close to death and that he was barely keeping himself composed for this meeting. He didn’t make the mistake of looking into my eyes, but he was an imposing figure and demanded my attention.

“Demon! State your name and purpose!” His voice carried throughout the chamber and I could feel everybody tense and go silent, anxiously awaiting my words.

I was about to answer when I heard a thrum to my left, through the wall, ‘ _Don’t tell him, it will only make things worse for you…’_ I knew the mortals couldn’t hear it, the voice spoke at too low of a frequency.

I smirked again, my previous thought answered. I didn’t tell him, but there was a small part of me, the human part, that wanted to trust them and I made a rookie mistake; I looked in the direction of the voice in earnest.

The old man noticed. I could almost see the cogs turning in his head. I replied to the voice to my left, _‘I may have given you away… act innocent.’_ I heard the equivalent of an exasperated sigh followed by a thrum of understanding. The boss marched off, most of his entourage followed, leaving only a few left staring at me, but not in the eyes. This included the man that looked into my eyes earlier and his friend, the arrogant man and the one that shut him down, as well as two unfamiliar faces that were probably lost in the crowd. The arrogant man was looking at the one to the left with jealousy, so I could only assume that the man was Luke, the one who captured me. I stared at him, trying to discern why he had done it, why he had cost so many people their lives. He was making an obvious effort not to look at me, but I could see his gaze flicker to me every once in a while.

The last man that stayed was a mystery, but my thoughts didn’t linger on him for long, my attention was focused on my left. The other ‘demon’ was most likely in a cell also, but it was quite far away, as I didn’t hear the boss’ voice until the entourage had all left.

“Ohm,” The voice boomed, I was confused, had the other given the boss his name? “What do you know about the other demon scum that we have here?”

There was a quiet hum, as if someone was speaking. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, so I panicked and frantically babbled, ‘ _What did you say?’_

There was a pause before the boss said, “Are you sure?” After a moment, I heard the thundering footsteps of the boss and his entourage.

Ohm then answered, ‘ _The truth.’_

I was pondering what he meant when the old man reappeared in front of my cell. “Demon. State your name and purpose.”

I remained silently trying to catch the man’s eyes, but they remained evasive. We remained this way for approximately four minutes, before he irritatingly declared, “I know your voice works, demon. Use it!”

I laughed. This took everyone aback, even Ohm, whose constant reassuring thrumming halted as he heard my manic laugh. To be completely honest, I don’t know why I laughed, it was an instinctual thing. Although, he did tell me to use my voice, so I did.

A brash voice spoke up, “Holy shit!”

This caused more murmuring to start. The boss just regarded me coldly. He knew he wasn’t getting anything out of me. He turned on his heel and left, entourage trailing behind. This left the six that stayed before and the large man that had spoken after I stopped laughing. Once the boss was gone, I decided to speak properly, “Check the bodies.” It was quiet, but I knew every single one of them heard me.

Luke’s eyes widened and he sprinted out of the room. The other six looked on bewildered, then the mystery man left also. It wasn’t long before each of them left me to my thoughts.

Ohm must’ve heard them quickly leave, ‘ _What did you_ say _?!’_


	2. Regret Is My Speciality

 

> **Ohm.**

_ Ten years prior.  _

I was trying to meditate. It normally kept me calm in the long stretches of time in the abyss, reliving the worst memories. Being suspended in infinite space was lonely and boring, but the universe had a cruel sense of humour and plagued me with flashes of my past whilst humming _‘A soul for a soul. Pick, or they both will perish. Don’t fail a fourth time…’_

I always used to scream into oblivion, demanding to be let out of this vicious cycle of murdering. It accomplished absolutely nothing. After a few centuries of curling helplessly into a ball, I found the art of meditation through a monk that I unfortunately had to murder. Meditation was a method that would help me to save my energy while simultaneously making the bad memories go away.

Then the shadows called upon me again, I melted into them. I knew better than to fight them now. They whisked me away to a faraway land, and I was presented with a choice:

A businessman in an important job that would save countless lives.

Or, a young female diplomat speaking out against injustices in her own country.

All of this was conveyed in flashes of colour and sound.

I had to choose quickly, or they would both die horrific deaths. At least I could do it with less pain inflicted than the universe would.

I chose the businessman, he was hardly the best man for the job. I will the shadows to take me to his office, but just as I emerged from the shadows I was blinded. I tried to adjust to the light, thinking that it was just the normal transition from the abyss to the mortal world, but it wasn’t mortal light. I cursed, knowing that I must leave, but the shadows wouldn’t come to me until after I had finished the job. I had to finish it.

It felt like I was wading through syrup as I had my way to where I assumed my prey was. I could feel the Caster’s incantations trying to reach me, but I was too determined. Each beam, meant to immobilise me, reflected off my body and I could hear the shattering of glass among the astonished shouts. I sensed the man, and purposefully trudged toward his whereabouts. Unfortunately for me, a Caster was also there, protecting the man. I grit my teeth, I didn’t want any other casualties than there was already going to be.

I hesitated. That was my downfall. The Caster took advantage of my hesitation and shouted, “Let me try something!”

There was an immediate response from behind me, “Are you fucking crazy? This is one of the Elders!” Elder? Is that what I am? I still heard melodic chanting from all directions. I wondered how they knew I was going to be here.

Without positive confirmation from who I assume was the leader, the Caster in front of me shouted, “CIRCULUS SOLIS!”

Suddenly I felt weightless, my legs no longer touched the ground and I swung slightly from side to side. Once I could hear the binding incantation I struggled, calling out to the shadows, but they wouldn’t help me. I hadn’t finished the job. They didn’t trust me anymore, but who could blame them, especially with what I’ve done. There was excruciating pain on my wrists and ankles before I was translocated into the Garrison of Casters.

They tried to question me through the Circle of Light, which was an odd incantation to use on me, as it is normally used as a protective shield instead of a cage. Though I gave them props for their innovativeness, I was worried about what would happen now that I hadn’t killed my target. Perhaps this was the third time the universe spoke of. I thought of the mortal saying, _‘Three strikes and you’re out!_ ’ If _‘out’_ meant eternal punishment in the abyss, then it would be a pretty accurate statement to make in my situation. Even though I thought of my present fate to be torture, I knew first-hand that it could be so much worse.

The Caster’s seemed to be arguing amongst themselves. Once they seemed to have come to a conclusion I felt myself being whisked away. The Circle of Light was let down and I flopped onto the cold ground. The pain of binding incantation dulled due to being let back into the darkness, although the shadows still kept their distance.

They then asked me the same questions I was unable to answer, “What is your name and why are you here?”

I kept quiet. There was low humming from the surrounding cells, I doubt that the mortals could hear it, there were entire conversations had between these other demons before I spoke cryptically, “Killing was not the answer, but then the universe made it my answer.”

They were taken aback, having heard me actually speak. They weren’t satisfied with my answer, though and they kept demanding that I tell them more. I didn’t want to give them anything personal, because, well, it’s personal. I no longer spoke.

They kept me in a damp cell with nothing but the two guards that stand either side of me constantly. They do change them every so often, however, they all seem to find it tedious and would rather not be there. Apparently there are better things to do.

I usually find their conversations extremely boring but occasionally they would say something of interest.

“Scott, how motherfucking dare you!” One guard said to the other as he was walking away. I found his obvious disregard for saying something so rude was distasteful to say the least, but also admirable in a strange way, maybe this age of people allowed it.

“What? What did I do?”

“You’re going to leave me, _alone_ , with the creepy-ass demon?” Well, that was insulting. I am a pleasure to be around.

“Someone will come by in a sec, but they need me up there, we have a- um,” He glanced at me warily, “ _situation_.” And then he winked repeatedly with one eye, I thought he’d had a seizure, but then he just left.

The other one grumbled about it, then he turned to me, “So, you ever been to Disneyland?” These mortals were so confusing. I glared in his general direction until he faced away from me again.

After that, it seemed there would only be one guard, as they seemed to be very short-staffed. It probably had something to do with that situation that caused people to have seizures when mentioned.

There was this one man that kept coming to see me, but he never got as far as the last step. He always seemed to change his mind and leave again. Until one day, when he stiffly plodded to my cell. I recognised him as the Caster that casted the Sun Circle incantation.

“Why?” He placed his hands on the bars, even though the guard on duty warned against it, “Why do you kill, and the others don’t?”

I don’t know why, but I felt as if I must give him something, “There was no indication as to whether the others would kill or not. The only one I’d ever met did.”

My wording confused him slightly, but I think he got the gist of it. The guard was looking on with wide eyes, I’m not entirely sure he’d heard me speak before. I could see how that would be slightly disorienting, seeing how they were more vibrations than sounds from a mouth. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure whether I have one. I’d have no use for it if I did though.

He turned to leave, but then he turned back, as if something occurred to him, “Why is there an omega sign where your face would be?”

This question took me by surprise, I honestly don’t really know what I look like. I know what I looked like in my past life, but I hadn’t really seen my reflection that much since my, um, ‘creation’. However, I remember _him_ telling me about the symbol on my face, before I asked the universe the same question.

I told the man the same thing the universe told me, “The last.”

His face perked up, “The last of what? The Greek alphabet? There are twenty-five letters, does that mean there are twenty-five of you?”

I was going to answer him when the shadows became bolder and restrained me. They circled my arms and legs and dragged me until my back was against the wall. There was a shout from the cell door, the man asking questions trying to open it while the guard was yelling at him not to. The shadows suffocated me, I heard my slow heartbeat in my ears before an angry roaring voice overwhelmed it all, ‘ _They do not need to know these things, Ryan, keep your information to yourself, or you will regr-’_ the voice was cut off by the shadows retreating; the direct cause of the man emitting light from his palm into the cell.

I stayed where I was, I didn’t want to move. The smothering coldness of the shadows felt too much like the night after the worst day of my past life. The night in which the life was sucked out of me and I became nothing more than a substantial shade. The man tried to coax me forward again, but I was shaking, the universe brought back up the worst of them. I could feel the pain and anguish I had caused, a cruel punishment for a cruel person.

The pain was almost unbearable, but I deserved it all.

* * *

>   ** _[A]_**

Present

_There was black, and then there was the void. The void took the term ‘black’ and gave it a new meaning. A mortal would never see anything here, nor would they want to._

_This was the place that Ryan feared above all else, and we knew it. We hadn’t been in the mortal world for so long that we were forgetting what it was like. Every day we would oversee the torturing of the mortal souls and the occasional shade. But there was one elder, one that failed in every regard, he could not kill, yet he had, when he was alive._

_He received the special treatment. Soon enough we saw him, he was sitting slumped on a chair, watching every one of his failed attempts. They would normally only give him three chances, but we gave him an extra, especially as Chilled was feeling very bad for an old friend. Galm, not so much, but he agreed anyway. Panda was just happy to help someone, as he couldn’t help those people he’d killed mercilessly._

_Much to our discontent, we heard the thrum of a new order,_ ‘Watch the first Retributioned, he will offer some interesting things to ponder.’

_We used our combined power over the shadows to conjure colour in front of our eyes. All colours of the light spectrum swirled to create images, but not white light, they would not allow that here. There were two men rummaging around in a young girl’s room. One looked to be of Asian descent while the other, the one we were looking for, had a long red beard and a worried expression._

_“Curious.” We said in unison, chuckling. “Calm down Alice.” We grinned._

_“We should do our morning rounds.”_

_“God, we sound creepy as fuck.” Creepy we were, but that wasn’t our fault._

_Was it?_


	3. Leaving Is Not An Option

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a small mention of suicide, not anything too big, but I thought I should mention it just in case.

> **Evan.**

I cannot believe I was stuck with Luke again. He had no off switch when it came to demons and it was becoming tiresome. Apparently, as I was the second most capable Caster at the garrison when it came to demons (guess who’s first), I was dragged around everywhere with him. It sucked.

Is it so bad that I just want to do fun things like skate, play guitar or play video games? Apparently it is! I hate that I had to be born with magical abilities that aren’t really that great; I can’t fly (though apparently Brock’s working on that) or conjure up pizza, like, what am I supposed to do?

My life was great before I was whisked away to the garrison at sixteen (pretty forcefully might I add). I can only see my family once a year for a day, usually not even that.

I just… feel like there’s something missing. I should be doing something else with my life.

But for right now I’m not complaining, because Luke thinks he’s found an answer to something, I don’t really know what. He’s probably trying to find the question too. I mean, when I first got here, it was less than a year after he’d caught the first and only elder we'd every managed to capture, so no wonder he was so distracted during orientation. Some people like to joke that he fell in love with the demon, he laughs it off, but… I don’t think it’s completely untrue, there’s something there that’s just… _off_ between him and the demon.

It explains why he literally ran out of the room when the second elder gave him even the smallest of clues. ‘ _Check the bodies’_? What kind of hint was that? The bodies are all either buried or going to be buried or cremated, whichever. Now we’re off to the morgue after doing a background check on that girl Luke found the demon at.

Speaking of which, I hate sneaking around grieving families, it just makes everything so much _worse_. We cast an invisibility incantation before tip-toeing past a cop interviewing a broken mother and a numb father.

I heard the cop say, “Have you had any indication that your daughter was suicidal?” I sucked in a breath. 

The mother erupted with fury, “How dare you! She would not do this to herself! This was cold-blooded MURDER!” She continued to yell at the cop until her voice was hoarse. After gathering the information on where the body was we could still hear her shouting, though it sounded more like weeping then. It just made me hate the demon more, how dare he tear apart a family like this?

I would normally complain at this point because we had to walk _so_ _far_. We couldn’t translocate because then we would need more scrolls and they were so heavy and ugh. Anyway, Luke wasn’t getting an earful, so he knew something was up. He slowed down to walk next to me, “What’s up, man?”

I glanced at him meaningfully, “I just… that family… that fucking demon… my…” No. Don’t think about that, you’re ok now, don’t fuck that up. “…what are we even doing, man?”

He stared ahead and sighed, “This might sound strange-”

“That’s nothing new for you.” I interrupted.

He glared at me, daring me to challenge him again. I put my hands up in surrender. He continued, “I trust them.”

“Them? The demons?”

“The _elders_.” He stressed the last word, telling me that’s what I should call them, as if 'demon' was offensive.

“Fine, the _elders_.” I mimicked him, “Why? They haven’t done anything trustworthy. Wait, no, Ohm did help that one time with the pickle-”

“Can you be serious for once in your life?” He constantly asked me this, and I always responded the same way.

“Nope.” Popping the ‘P’ and sticking my tongue out at him to further prove my point.

He let out an exasperated sigh, “I just think there’s more to this than merciless killing for the sake of it, alright?”

I rolled my eyes, “I’m stuck with you either way anyway, so.” We only walked along for a short while before I turned to him again, “Do you know how many times I’ve gone to Lawrence asking to leave?”

It was his turn to roll his eyes, he drawled, “Yes, eighteen times.”

“Eighteen fucking times!” I was getting worked up, “Each time it was an: ‘Ask me in six months, Evan, you’ll have finished your whatyamacallit by then.’ Like, what the _fuck_?!” I thought I did a perfect impersonation of Lawrence’s British accent, but Luke wasn't as impressed. 

“I have heard this so many times, I’m actually considering helping you.”

“Really?” I said excitedly.

“No.” I pouted and stuck my tongue out at him again.

We walked the rest of the way in uncomfortable silence. I was trying to think of something to say to make it less awkward, but every time I opened my mouth he shot me a look. It was cold. I pulled my jacket closer in on myself. It’s April! Why is it so cold in Iowa? I groaned, Luke looked at me with a face that said, ‘If you even think about complaining, I’m whoopin’ your ass.’ He was always the best at those looks.

I didn’t even get a chance to complain, because we were at the Milford Morgue then. Our invisibility incantation had worn off at this point and we didn’t have another scroll with the inscription on it, so we had to be sneaky. Ha, simple.

We sheepishly walked in, the lady at the desk asked us what we were here for. We said we were forensic scientists that needed to look at Bobby Levitt’s body. She said that we weren’t needed and that we should leave. I thought that was pretty rude and was going to make a scathing remark about her stupid hairdo when Luke dragged me out. He knows me too well.

We leant against the outer wall, “Well, this blows.” I said unenthusiastically.

“You’ve never said a truer thing in your life, Evan.” Luke said distractedly, looking around.

But I still wanted to sneak into the place, even if it was just to spite that receptionists smug face, “So, are you going to do your miracle-working and magic us in there?”

He laughed, “If I could I would.” He glanced at me and my satchel full of scrolls, “Doesn’t hurt to check does it?”

I grinned and reached into the satchel, filing through each one. I thought I found the perfect one, “Aha!”

“What is it?!” He got excited and peered over my shoulder.

“Explosion!”

“No.” He went back to checking the perimeter.

“Aw…” I called him no fun, before delving back into the papyrus. “Ok! I think I got it this time.” I turned it around and he smiled wryly.

“I think you’re right.”

Soon enough, we had gone around to the back where there was a garage door and another door with a ramp leading up to it. I took out the scroll and read out its contents. Then the building started to rumble and rise, I heard yelps of surprise from the first floor. “Um, Evan?” Luke turned to look at me with a worried look on his face.

“Yeah?” I was completely unfazed.

“I thought you had ‘unlock’?”

“Oh, no. That’s _reserare_. I showed you _resurgemus; ‘_ rise’ _._ Honest mistake.” I hopped down into the basement.

I could hear him stuttering behind me, “I… that’s not… what I meant.”

I looked up at him, “It worked didn’t it?” He nodded hesitantly, the building was coming down again, “Quickly, we have to find her!”

He knew there was no reasoning me, so he hopped down as well. We ran around the basement and eventually found her. There weren’t any forensic scientists down there; that receptionist lady lied. We looked at her body, there was a deep slash across her chest and a slit in her throat. It was pretty gruesome, if I hadn’t have seen my fair share of dead and decapitated bodies during my time as a Caster, I would definitely be puking my guts up in the bucket by the table. As it stands, I just stood there holding my nose, it _really_ stank.

“Why did the demo- sorry, _elder_ want us to look at the body?” As if it had heard me, a wisp of what looked like black smoke rose from the slit in her throat. It rose and fell, before being joined by more. We watched as her body disintegrated, the shadows rolling over her body and the table she was laid on before seeping through the ground. After the body was completely gone, save for a pile of ashes in the centre of the table. I quipped, “Is that what happens in a crematorium?”

Luke hit me upside the head and motioned for us to leave by pointing at my satchel. Not wanting to stick around, I reached in and grabbed the translocating scroll. I chanted while doing the necessary steps. Where my feet had touched the ground a swirling puddle of pure white light formed. Luke was the first to step through. I muttered, “Age before beauty.” And stepped through myself. 

I love the feeling of translocating, it’s that feeling that your stomach does when quickly going from high to low, like at those free fall drop rides. I love those. What I do not love is the harsh white tiles of the entrance hall and the unnecessarily ornate pillars that hold up the ceiling. In short: I hate the Garrison, I hate that it makes me feel trapped and unable to do anything about it.

I was hoping to just quietly slip back to my dorm or down to the dungeons with Luke, but I heard an annoyed shout and I knew I was in for it. As soon as Lawrence angrily stormed over to us, followed by Adam, Giselle and Max respectively; Luke studied me knowingly. I was so screwed.

Lawrence stopped uncomfortably close to me and I had to refrain from taking a step back, he smelled really bad, “Where did you go?” His voice was so full of malice and so _British_ , he could’ve been a supervillain.

I don’t mention that to him though, Lawrence wasn’t one for jokes and as much as I liked getting under people’s skin, he was not the person to mess with. So I looked down and briefly stated, “Iowa.”

“Right, and where did I tell you not to go?”

“Iowa.” I had to stop myself from smiling.

“Where in the world did we get a notification saying that there was a morgue lifted ten feet off the ground?”

I couldn’t stop the grin on my face, I saw Adam and Giselle silently snigger behind Lawrence, Max looked amused as well, “Iowa.”

“Evan… Evan, Evan, Evan. What am I going to do with you?” He always did this, like he didn’t know what I was going to reply with.

“Kick me out?” I asked hopefully, despite already knowing the answer.

“Evan!” He got mad, but he stopped himself and he looked like he was mentally counting to ten, “You know that we need you. We’re losing Casters to the demons left and right!”

“They’ve always done that! Besides, there are still five hundred and ninety-eight of us, including me, so-”

“Five hundred and eighty-seven.”

Luke and I were taken aback, we spoke in unison, “What?!”

“Five hundred and eighty-seven. There was an attack on the Russian outpost.” He looked at me with such a withering glare that I swear I would’ve wilted. “We’re not recruiting and training them fast enough, there are at least a hundred that still don’t know how to read the scrolls, let alone make them or chant an incantation. You absolutely cannot leave.” Now, I really do not like Lawrence for multiple reasons, but he had a point. I owed it to the others as well as him, as well as Luke. I know for a fact that he wouldn’t be where he is now without me.

“Fine. I won’t ask you to let me leave anymore.” He nodded and started to turn, “Wait!” he looked back, “I don’t want to have to teach anymore. We all know that I’m not good at it.”

Lawrence smiled, it didn’t look good on him, “Quite the contrary, Evan, they seem to like you.” He then left before I could get another word in.

I rotated to look at Luke, “What a fucking asshat, amirite?” But he was already heading in the direction of the dungeons. I muttered, “Godamnit” and sprinted to catch up with him.

I lost much of my bravado as I stumbled down those stairs. I hated it down here. I’ve never been needed as a guard, but I’ve been down here more times than I can count.

Luke wasn’t the same. He thrived down here, which I found strange, because the dark atmosphere drained almost every other Caster that came down here. One time we had to drag Tyler back out again after he passed out. That was scary, the shadows from all of the cells were trying to get to, wrap around and suffocate him. He doesn’t like to talk about that day. After that we had to cycle through the guards at an alarming rate. It took Lawrence a lot of convincing, since he was adamant that the demonic energy hadn’t been the cause of Tyler’s fainting.

It just makes me wonder; if all the demons down here are causing us to feel faint and sick, why don’t we just banish them all? The only two banishings I’ve seen were done back to back and the Caster that spoke both of the incantations was completely fine after. So, I know it’s not a shortage of Casters or papyrus, because I could easily draw a banishing incantation in ten minutes. It just leads me to believe that Lawrence is keeping something from us, because every time I confront him about he becomes increasingly evasive. Everything’s just frustrating.

Once my feet hit the solid floor, I realised I had been thinking too much, as I had lost Luke. I decided that I’d go to the newest elder’s cell, as that’s where I thought he would be.

Unfortunately he wasn’t there, but I recognised the guard stationed there. He saw me too and waved me over, so I approached. He held out his fist toward me and I met it with mine. “So, how was the morgue?”

I chuckled, “Did news get around that fast?”

“Nah, I could just hear Lawrence’s beautiful voice from down here.” We both laughed, but I stopped after I felt eyes boring into the back of my head; the elder. I turned, but didn’t meet his gaze, instead opting to glare at his feet.

“Why did you want us to check the body?” All I wanted was an answer, but all we were getting was more questions.

He hummed lowly, almost too low for a human voice box. I wondered if he was doing the thing that whales do; singing at a lower frequency, but I wasn’t so sure that infrasound carried as well through gases and solids. Smitty seemed to be watching the elder too, waiting for an explanation.

“I don’t know.” Are you serious?

Smitty spoke before I did, “You don’t _know_? Then what…” he trailed off, he didn’t know what else to say.

Irritated, I said, “Then why would you send us on a wild goose chase just so I can yelled at?”

The demon spoke again, I’ll never get used to it. His voice was a vibration all around you, like bees buzzing in and out of your ear, “I’ll admit, that wasn’t my intention, but did you find something?”

“Well, yeah…” I said uncertainly, both him and Smitty were looking at me expectantly. “We, uh, found the body of that girl-” I stopped for a second after he winced and clutched his head. After a few seconds his head rose and he waited patiently for me to continue, “-and, um, there were shadows coming out of her body, but then she completely disintegrated and left behind this little pile of ashes.”

Smitty whistled, “Sounds rough, man.”

The elder seemed to be contemplating what I had said. We both waited in anticipation for what he was going to say, “She’s gone to the abyss. Those shadows, were they glistening at all?”

It seemed like a slightly odd question, but I wasn’t about to complain, “Uh… yeah?”

“Those shadows were taking her soul to-” he never finished his sentence as the shadows that were rapidly growing while we were talking, came out from behind him. For a split second I could’ve sworn a saw a body made completely out of shadows, but that was probably just a trick of the light. What wasn’t a trick, though, was the massive pools of darkness that encircled the elder and made him scream in pain. The scream was awful and high-pitched, definitely not human.

We both froze, we didn’t have any idea what to do in this situation. Smitty was panicking and breathing heavily while I was just standing there, numb. Luke came rushing towards us out of nowhere. His eyes looked sorrowful, as if he had seen the elder’s pain before. He reassured us, “They’ll go away soon, the binding incantation keeps away the darkness.”

It didn’t look like they were going to leave. We watched as the darkness continued to plague the elder, Luke seemed very confused at the duration of it. I heard him mutter, "They should've gone by now, they always left after ten seconds." 

I felt horrible just standing there, and I don’t know what made me do it, but while Luke and Smitty were watching the elder intently, I rummaged around in my bag and pulled out the correct scroll. I unfurled it and yelled out the inscription drawn on it, “ _Reserare!”_

Luke caught on to what I was doing too late, I had already grabbed the bars and shoved them to the side. I felt Luke’s hand grab the back of my satchel, but I just let Luke grab it and pull it off my shoulder. I ran in without thinking at all, I just knew I had to stop the screaming. The shadows enveloped the elder like a whirlwind, but I pushed through. I don’t know what came over me, but I touched the elder’s shoulder, looked deep into his eyes and screamed, “ ** _SENDENDUM!_** "

Then everything went black.

* * *

 

> **_[A]_ **

_We grinned, gazing into the mirage of colour before our very eyes._

_Everything was going according to plan..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm happy with how this chapter turned out. I wrote the ending so many times, and I finally settled on this one. 
> 
> I also added Evan as a bit of comedic relief, but that's not all he is I can promise you that. ;) 
> 
> Also added the one and only milkbag: smiiseveny, he'll be popping up more later. 
> 
> I hope you like this so far. Thanks for reading! :)


	4. Sneaking is not my forté.

> **Luke.**

Just when I think I’ve got everything under control, I end up having to drag Evan out of a cell after he recklessly ran in and scorched the place. A bunch of people came down to see what happened after they heard a horribly high-pitched screeching. I found Brock and David straight away, I helped David carry Evan away while Brock walked beside us and I told him the whole story.

After I told him about the word he shouted before everything erupted in blindingly white light, he was even more confused, “Sendendum? It sounds like Latin, but it’s not in any dictionary that we know of…”

“Are you sure? He sounded really confident when he shouted it, and you know I’m not that good with Latin, so I thought it was just an incantation I hadn’t heard yet.”

Brock thought for a moment before shaking his head, “No. I haven’t heard of it. That’s strange though, if Evan found a word he didn’t know he normally would’ve told me.”

“Yeah, that is really weird.” I think back to Ohm wincing during our conversation before I could hear an ear-splitting screech. “I guess we’ll find out when he wakes up.”

“Yeah, I’ll check the Incantory though, we might find something on it in there. I hope Lawrence will let me use it.” My insides twisted just at the mention of the sly leader. I did not trust him one bit. Neither did Ohm, not that that’s important, though…

Brock said his goodbyes and I was left with David carrying Evan to the infirmary. He wasn’t much for conversation, but occasionally he would come out with a philosophical question that would make everyone roll their eyes. Me being one of them. Nothing against the guy, but there are better things to be worrying about. At this point I just tuned out his voice while he was talking about the morals of squirrels.

I was thinking a lot. After we dragged Evan out of there, the elder just laid there, unmoving. He was staring at nothing, there were whispers of incoherent words that I could only assume came from him. I wonder what actually happened between them. I looked down at Evan, he was the same, but his eyes were closed and he was covered head to toe in scorch and scratch marks. The demon was relatively unscathed, but then, how would we be able to tell?

I broke out of my thoughts as we walked through the doors of the infirmary. As far as infirmaries go, the one at the garrison left much to be desired. We were very understaffed and undersupplied for the amount of people that came to them after demon attacks and the like. I could hear the whispers as I walked past. I was used to it, but this time they were looking at Evan with concern.

This brought me right back to worrying about him. Sure, he’s an annoying pain in the ass most of the time, but he does make light of the situation when we need it. Without him, it just feels too serious. I can hear David try and crack a few jokes here and there, but I wasn’t really paying any attention.

I sat by Evan’s bedside until they told me to leave. Which wasn’t that long, as they saw the severity of his wounds and made him a priority. But then I didn’t know what to do with myself. I trudged out of the room, no doubt looking like shit. I was about to go down and see Ohm when the guard - uh, Smitty, I think it was – sauntered over and said the entire thing was quarantined until further notice.

“Don’t they need someone to investigate it?” Smitty shrugged, he obviously didn’t know, “I’m one of their best experts on ‘demonic energy’ why haven’t they asked me?” He shrugged again. I sighed, “Thanks for your help.”

I left him standing there. He might have wanted to say more, but I walked away too fast to give anybody a chance to talk to me. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t go to Ohm, and so I went back to Evan.

* * *

> _**[L]** _

  _Analysing the numbers again, I clutched my head. The almost unreadable texts scattered across my desk all said the same number;_ mille _. One thousand._

_One thousand, what? People? Demons? Souls?_

_All we’ve managed to gather - though most is still speculation - is that there should be a thousand of us. That, in the beginning, there were a thousand of us. But that just begs the question; where did we all go?_

_If that calculation is final, there should have been four-hundred and two. Now four-hundred and thirteen missing souls if those lost in Russia truly count. We haven’t found a new Caster in months and the new ones we do have, they have no motivation to do well! Back in my day, we got on with work and didn’t complain! Now look, even one of our best is trying to slip through our fingers, as well as almost getting himself killed. This is an absolute calamity._

* * *

 

> **Evan.**

_‘The world is a paradox.’_ What does that statement even mean? It contradicts itself? It doesn’t make sense? If it’s either of those, that statement is correct. The world doesn’t make sense to me because it contradicts itself. Why am I the one chosen to have cool powers but I don’t want them? Why are they not that cool to me? I don’t know. Nobody knows.

Maybe someone does know. Maybe there is a God. Maybe people invented it to explain for things they didn’t understand or maybe there is one, but he’s busy elsewhere. Maybe he has a cruel sense of humour, ‘Hey, let’s make this world full of people and animals and leave them completely to their own devices. Wouldn’t that be hilarious?’

_If God truly is omniscient, then there are people that know a lot of stuff too right? God isn’t there, so they passed on the information. Who keeps the world working other than the people in charge? Nobody. So, who knows a lot? The people in charge…_

By that logic, Lawrence knows a lot. He might not know everything… but he knows a lot.

And I don’t know a lot.

_So, you- I should break into his office, or…_

Or, I should get someone else to do it since I’m pretty much immobilised.

 _Yes. When he comes to see y- me again I’ll tell him to do that_. I felt myself grin dopily. Then it immediately fell.

Wait! Am I high? I panicked, if I’m high, then that means…

If I’m saying this out loud say “Oranges.”

“Oranges.”

Shit!

“Don’t worry… me Luke.” I dozed slightly in the middle of his sentence. Wow, I’m really fucking high. I think I’m hearing voices too.  

I made a conscious effort to say, “Oh, cool.”

Then my brain made a connection, “Oh, wait! Hey! I need you to do something for me! Can you-”

“Go to Lawrence’s office? Yeah-”

“What the fuck, are you psychic?” I ask, my eyes blown wide. Luke laughed. “Don’t laugh at me you meanie!” I stuck out my tongue for good measure. But once it was out, it felt too big to get back in my mouth. I sat there for a solid minute trying and eventually I gave up.

Luke wasn’t even watching me anymore. He was looking at me, but he was looking past me, with a hard expression. What was he doing? What was he looking at?

_Me._

You? Me? I’m the only one here.

_Yes… You are._

I am so confused, “Luke? What’re you looking at?” It was slightly muffled and almost indiscernible with my tongue lolling out of my mouth.

He jumped and his gaze flew around the room, not focusing for a few seconds before landing back on me, “I- um, I don’t really know…”

I looked at him again with a puzzled expression, for a second I didn’t feel in control of my voice and I could hear words that weren’t my own, “ _Shouldn’t you get going?”_ Luke seemed a bit dazed and nodded, standing up. No. That wasn’t me, “Wait!”

Luke looked at me, concerned, “What, does it hurt again? I can call for David-”

“No!” I was about to say how _wrong_ this all felt, how there was something that wasn’t _me_ , when I felt it take over again, “ _Shouldn’t you stock up on scrolls with Brock? He might have something new.”_

Luke was sceptical, I could see it in his face, but he trusted me and my judgement. I knew that, but this is one of the only times where I don’t want him to listen to me. Something feels off. I haven’t decided whether it’s good or bad yet, but I know it’s not _me_.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t convey this to him in the time it took him to walk confidently out of the room. Uh oh.

_Uh oh, indeed…_

* * *

>   **Luke.**

_ 20 minutes later. _

I can’t believe I’m taking orders from a guy high off his ass on pain meds.

Although, I can’t argue with him. Evan’s broken logic about Lawrence isn’t really that broken, if at all. We all know he’s hiding things from us. The real question is what? What could be so good or bad that he had to hide it from us? He already told us about the Russian outpost, what could be worse than eleven mutilated bodies left to freeze? There’s also the thing about banishing demons and why we don’t do that anymore. We never knew why, we just stopped, but now the main dungeon that’s holding approximately fifty-two demons including the two elders. The British outpost contains the other four in their dungeons, since they are stationed in a castle and can hold a few demons at a time. Not as many as the actual garrison though.

The garrison itself was huge, situated on its own island in the south of the Atlantic Ocean, a few thousand miles away from the coast of Antarctica, so the weather was pretty unpredictable but mild, as we were in the zone in between the Ferrell and Polar cells. We were protected by certain wards of magic that were constantly maintained by a team of people, two being Evan’s close friends: Tyler and Craig. They were very secretive about it, as there were break-ins from demons before - due to information being leaked.

I strolled past many Casters as I made my way along an inconspicuous route to Lawrence’s office. Some smiled friendlily. Others just stared, no doubt informed of my part in the last three days. _Whoops_ , I guess.

Once I got to his office I walked right past the door with two guards stationed either side. Lawrence would do that. I decided to be stealthy. Not exactly my strong suit, I know, but what’s stopping me from trying? Brock had given me a satchel, not unlike the one Evan normally carries around, and I silently thanked Evan for his sudden outburst about making me get these. Brock, of course, knew exactly what I was doing. When I told him he smirked and grabbed a few loose scrolls of papyrus from his prototype desk and shoved them into a satchel, before reassuringly saying, “Just… improvise.”

Anyway, I found the incantation for invisibility quite quickly and cast it in a small alcove to the side of his office, it covered my body and belongings like a cloud. I knew it wouldn’t last long so I had to work fast. I snuck past the guards with ease. I only opened the door just enough for me to slip through. It only occurred to me as I was sliding into the office that he might still be inside, but it didn’t seem like he was, so I continued the flawed and not-well-thought-through plan.

The office itself was an organised mess. There were new and old papers in varying stages of decay scattered everywhere, ancient texts hung on the walls. But this was all just for show. This was the office that he made everyone think he had under control. The one I wanted to find was hidden, but I didn’t know where. I brought out some of Brock’s scrolls, invisible to everyone’s eyes but my own, and searched through them.

One with a carefully drawn eye and an almost unreadable inscription, I whispered it aloud, while doing a simple box step, as the inscription described, “ _Insidias lacrimis revelare_.”

The room was then overloaded with red and blue lines. Some were flashing, some were solid and unmoving and others were lazily flickering on and off at an uneven pace. I tried to understand what the scroll actually did, I know that _revelare_ is reveal, and the words before should be what it’s revealing, but my Latin isn’t good enough to know those words without a dictionary or an Evan with me. So, I just guessed that I had to avoid them all, and I pulled off some Mission Impossible shit. Like, seriously, I am proud of myself. My goal was a panel in the centre of the wall behind the main desk.

It was deceiving, as there were two large bay windows either side, but the biggest giveaway was the excessive amounts of lines. If these lines were bad, then I don’t see how I was going to get through them. I need to deactivate them…

I stood in a safe spot before the web of lines in front of the panel and searched through the rest of the papers. I saw one that was close enough to a word in English that I decided it was worth it. The invisibility incantation was weaning, the cloud was flickering slightly. I whispered, “ _Eradico… quod insidias lacrimis…”_ uncertainly. This one didn’t require a movement, for which I was thankful, otherwise I would’ve walked straight into about three lines that could reveal me or worse. I was pleasantly surprised when the lines all shut off at once.

After that it was easy to get in. I suppose Lawrence didn’t account for Brock’s genius or my determination. The panel slid open at my touch, supposedly the touch of a Caster. Once I stepped inside I realised that the mess in the show office was nothing compared to the mess back here.

There were stacks upon stacks of ancient texts and new photocopies on the floor surrounding the cluttered desk. On the actual desk there were less texts, but they all seemed to have similar things on them. The word ‘ _mille’_ was on a lot of them, I knew that meant one thousand, but I didn’t know what it meant here. I shuffled through all of the texts that I definitely could not read and found some translations into English.

There were too many words, but some things stuck out to me;

‘We shall revere them as Gods among men.’

‘…counterpart has fallen… razed to the ground.’

‘No longer shall they torment.’

‘…rituals may bring back our sun.’

‘Darkness shall no longer plague us.’

All of these were from the same series of tablets in what was Alexandria. I know they had scrolls and papyrus back then, because of the legends of the Library of Alexandria, but this must have been really important for them to actually inscribe it into stone. Especially for it to still be in the new version of Alexandria, by the looks of the maps depicting a city on the coast of Egypt on the west side of the Nile Delta. I wasn’t sure what to do with this information until I found a picture of a small drawing.

I couldn’t make it out very well in the light, but it seemed to be two circles drawn in red. On the smaller circle in the centre of the other, there were four points that separated it into quarters. There were two squares, one painted black, the other only had a black outline. Opposite the black square was a black triangle and opposite the other square was a triangle also with only a black outline. I couldn’t make out the markings on the other circle, it was too dark around the edges of the picture, but I could make out a very thickly drawn ‘x’ and another on the other side, but that one only had a black outline also.

However, all of this was distracting from the centre of both of the circles; a large sun chopped in half diagonally, on the other side was also a sun, but completely coloured in black. I wondered what it meant.

I had been standing there for so long that I had forgotten to check up on my invisibility incantation, which was flickering on and off sporadically now. Normally I would have thrown away the scroll by now and not strain it too much, but it’s too late to turn back now.

I had to get out of here. I made a split-second decision and grabbed the papers from the table, shoving them into my satchel. I ran out of the room, the lines hadn’t reappeared, so that either meant I _had_ completely eradicated them, or they would turn back on any second. Either way, I wasn’t sticking around to find out. I then sprinted for the doors, before turning around again as they opened and diving behind a dangerously stacked pile of papers. Lawrence walked in with Max and Giselle, Adam was nowhere to be found, he was probably serving as a diplomat somewhere, I don’t really care.

What I did care about was what Lawrence was going to say. He muttered something under his breath, a small piece of papyrus in hand. Maybe he was taking down the lines again. After about thirty seconds of standing there in confusion, he turned to the other two, “Someone’s been in here…”

Both of them turned their heads and searched, but by that point I had panicked and darted out of the room. I’m almost certain the cloud faltered for a second as I ran and there was a small shout from the guards on the outside, but I was running and I would not stop.

I flew down the corridors, not caring about anything except my destination; Brock’s workshop. Well, it’s not exactly _his_ , but it might as well be, he practically lives there anyway.

Once I got there, I saw Brock and his friend Brian talking quietly in a corner, while a bunch of newbies were working on their first scroll. They all went silent at the sight of me rushing in - invisible one second, another not – panting as if I had run a marathon.

Brock was the first to speak, “Luke! What have I told you about keeping an incantation on for longer than you’re supposed to? You can seriously injure yourself!” After chastising me he turned to the sixteen to eighteen year-olds and said, “I know what I told you ten minutes ago, but don’t listen to _this_ adult.” Pointing toward me at the end.

I smiled slightly, throwing away the papyrus I still had in my pocket, before saying frantically, “Can I talk to you?”

Brock nodded and led me to the backroom, usually where he slept. Brian followed us too. I turned to them when we were inside. I looked warily at Brian before Brock immediately picked up on it and reassured me, “Brian already knows almost everything, he’s cool.”

I shook my head and said, “Alright.” Then I pulled my satchel off my shoulder and dumped all of the contents on the small workshop table. I could see Brock wince, as I knew he was sort of a neat freak when it came to his room, “I went into his real office. There were so many papers and most of them were in Latin so I couldn’t read them properly, but I got these.” I took the scrunched up papers from the bottom of the pile and held them up for them to see.

Brian looked startled and said hastily, “That’s from the Library of Alexandria, but no one knows where it was, it burned to the ground ages ago. Although nobody knows by who, Julius Caesar in 48AD or Aurelian in the 270’s, though all the evidence points to fucking Julius Caesar-”

Brock rolled his eyes, “Thanks, Brian, but how does that help us?”

Brian crossed his arms, “It doesn’t but I’m just stating a simple fact! It was burned down ages ago and nobody knows where it is! Plus this picture was taken, like, fifty years ago, look at that saturation! But that does mean that somebody knows where it is, fifty years ago, at least…”

He trailed off. Before shouting, “Wait!” We both looked at him expectantly. “I got really interested in this a while ago and I swear I found an article on it, it was written in, like, the early two thousands and it was a Polish or Egyptian archaeologist or something that found it by the Bruchion region, there were lecture halls and everything!”

Brock and I both smiled widely at him, Brock grabbed him by the shoulders and shouted, “Yes! That’s what we were looking for! I knew there was a genius behind that wall of stupidity!”

Brian suddenly looked offended, “What? I’m not stupid-”

I interrupted, “Yeah, yeah, you’re not, but come on! What are we going to do with that information? Go there? I’m pretty sure none of us are permitted to leave now. We’ll be going into full lockdown soon, especially after Evan.”

They both looked down at the mention of him. Brock glanced up again, slight hope in his eyes, “Luke… we have to do something. I mean, we’re all getting stir-crazy just sitting around doing nothing actually productive!” He gestured to Brian, “He just told us where it is! We can go there, take another _good_ picture of the circles and we can just, I don’t know, _do_ something!”

I stared at both of them, while it was true I wanted to do something, I just had a bad feeling, “Fine. We’ll go, just the three of us. Brian, you have to guide us to where it is.” He looked a bit worried, but he nodded immediately, “Okay, we have to go now. Otherwise I’m gonna be the one in the dungeons.”

Brock stopped, “What did you do?!”

I turned back to him, “Why did you think I held on to my invisibility for so long?”

He looked like he was about to snap, he opened his mouth to say something, when the door opened to reveal Lucas, or Smitty, as he preferred.

He smirked and asked, “Road trip?”

“How long were you listening there for?” Brian asked, incredulous.

“About how long it took for me to get everyone else away from the door. You’re welcome, by the way.” He looked incredibly proud of himself.

“So, you know everything about the plan?” I raised my eyebrow.

“I can do one better, I can get you there.”

This confused me, “We can get to Alexandria without you, you know.”

“Oh, I know that, but I can get you into the chamber with the markings in it. I just need a friend.”

“How do you know that we can’t get into the chamber without you?” Brock jumped in.

He smiled smugly again, “Because it’s heavily guarded and only a friend and I know how to bypass the guards.”

“How do we know you’re not fucking with us and just want to tag along?” Brian inquired.

“You don’t.”

Brian’s eyes narrowed and he dejectedly said, “He’s right…”

Brock sighed, “Fine, just come.”

He grinned and threw his arms in the air, “WHOOP! WHOOP!”

Brock grabbed his arms and pulled them down, he hissed, “Be quiet, there are still students finishing their projects!”

“Oh yeah, because that’s the most of our worries right now.”

Brock only rolled his eyes. I chuckled a bit and so did Brian, “Let’s fucking go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for not uploading for a while. I had a bit of writer's block and a lot of shit to do for school, etc. 
> 
> Also, I'm really lazy and just watch YouTube videos, maybe that's why I'm in this fandom. 
> 
> I only got this chapter done today because it's snowing in the UK and I got a day off school, so yay! 
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the wait and I hope you liked this chapter, I had some fun writing it. I'm in the process of writing the next one, it will mostly be from Ohm's perspective (I think, I might change my mind) and that should be going up sometime soon, since I have the entire weekend at my disposal. 
> 
> Most of you can probably guess who Smitty's friend is...so I'm not going to say.


	5. Tall, dark and hands- I mean, mysterious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't expect great things.

> **Marcel.**

I couldn’t get rid of the images in my mind. Life after life, death after agonising death. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, I could only watch as I saw millennia of heartbreak, heartache and heart attacks.

In the end, everything seemed to come back to love. I know that sounds super corny, but it’s true. There’s always that one person you would love endlessly. In some cases two or three. Love between friends, partners, lovers, family; all of these places correlate in that way.

When I first looked into that bastards eyes, all I saw was death and destruction. Through his eyes. But then it turned softer, now every time I closed my eyes I saw generations of people like me go through hardships and shortcomings. But it was a wonder to behold them keep coming up from it. Although, it doesn’t always happen like that.

Now whenever I woke, I was bombarded with questions from multiple people, ‘How are you feeling?’, ‘What did you see?’, ‘Why won’t you talk to me?’ etc. It was getting exhausting. The only person that wouldn’t push me was Scott. He felt bad after hitting me when he heard me scream in my sleep. Now he’s constantly by my side, never asking questions, never needing to. He was my anchor that kept me from slipping away altogether.

When I woke up for the last time, Scott was already there to comfort me. It was one of the bad ones this time. But all of the dreams lately seemed eerily familiar. It was like déjà vu, I felt like I’ve lived it before but I can’t put my finger on where. It was never clear when I woke, but I did know that it took a toll on me emotionally. This time especially, as I cried into Scott’s shoulder.

“It’s okay…” He whispered reassuringly into my ear, he was rubbing soothing patterns into my back.

I shook my head vigorously, pulling back slightly, “No. No it’s not.”

He gazed right into my eyes and I could see the pity and sadness in his, “What is it?”

I shook my head again, pulling away completely. I put my head in my hands and took in a shuddering breath, before letting out a sob. “I-I don’t know…” I glanced up at him, he was watching me with the most concerned face I’d ever seen grace his features, “I have a bad feeling about…” I shot up so suddenly the bed rocked and Scott almost fell over backwards. I turned to him, panicked, “Has anyone left the Garrison?”

He looked guilty, he wouldn’t look me in the eye. “They told me not to say…”

“I don’t care!” He flinched and reeled back, I have never shouted at him for something as serious as this, “I’m not gonna tell Lawrence!”

He regained his composure and kneeled up to meet me. He placed a hand on my shoulder, “You need to calm down.” He put his other hand on my right shoulder, steadying me. “Okay?” He was waiting for me to give confirmation, so I nodded and he breathed a sigh of relief before quietly saying, “Okay, it was, Brock, Brian, Smitty and… Luke.”

I sucked in a breath. _No, no, NO!_ Images of blood and screaming filled the darkness as I closed my eyes. Then I saw something that made me confused. My eyes shot open, “Where’s Evan?”

* * *

 

> **Ohm.**

_A really long time ago.  _

When we touched for the first time, I thought that fate was finally being kind to me, and it was, if only for a while…

It was early on in my ‘murderous cycle’ as I like to call it. I was just getting used to the fact that I would never be the same. On this occasion I was given the choice of either an old midwife that had saved countless women and babies in rural England and Scotland, despite the growing tensions between the two countries. Alternatively, there was a young sailor in Spain, destined to discover new lands.

I should’ve chosen the sailor.

In my mind, I reasoned that she was old and didn’t have much life left in her. Before killing her, I caught a flash of what would have been; she would’ve trained two apprentices, her efforts would have drastically hindered infant mortality and the amount of deaths caused by childbirth even after her death.

But I was committed now, if I could’ve turned back I would’ve. It was with a heavy heart that I killed her. My cold hands composed of shadows enclosed around her neck and I cut off her air supply. There was a small amount of blood pooling in her mouth, sights like this didn’t affect me anymore. Sometimes I wished they did.

I turned and was about to depart when I heard a gargling scream, a thud and then silence. I felt more shadows move in that direction. I couldn’t help myself, I was curious. The dark tendrils that stayed near me tried to coax me back into oblivion.

I didn’t listen this time.

I walked out of the small house and in the direction of the shadows so silently I was almost gliding. It was very dark that night, not even the moon was out. Yet I could still see him. He was taller than me, but not by much. He was made of shadows, as I was, but there were red marks on his face that were so out of place they almost glowed. There were two red lined that formed a cross over where one eye would be and some on his forehead that were similar to devil horns.

I was terrified. He slowly inclined his head toward me, indicating that he knew I was watching him. After a few seconds of taking each other in, he sauntered over to me. I was frozen; staring. He spoke, revealing a mouth with a set of pointy canines, “Good evening.”

I quickly became breathless, which was a feat in itself because up until this point wasn’t sure whether I _was_ breathing. _‘How can you do that?’_

He seemed confused, but answered with a thrum, as I had spoken to him, _‘Pardon?’_

_‘Speak so that the mortals can hear you?’_

He smirked, his pointed teeth shining unnaturally, “Practise.”

I tried to find my vocal chords, I remembered where they were and how to use them, but I didn’t have a mouth anymore, so when I tried, all that came out was an unnaturally high-pitched screech. He visibly winced, “That would require some definite practise.”

I nodded, my head downcast.

I felt very out of my depth. I was stood next to another exactly like me. I thought I was the only one…

He suddenly chuckled for no apparent reason, I waited until he explained. “This is surreal. There has been none other since…” he trailed off, a light smile was just visible on his face, probably thinking of a pleasant time. I wish I could.

But then something else bothered me, ‘ _What do you mean another?’_ He looked down at me again, acknowledging my presence, ‘T _here are more of us?’_

The smile morphed back into a smirk, he leaned in close and meaningfully stated, “More than you will ever know.”

I shuddered, he had breath. Everything about him seemed so _human_ , and I was curious. Then I asked, ‘ _Why do you have a mouth?_ ’ As soon as I said it, I nearly slapped myself.

He quickly leaned back again. This time he closed his mouth and a deep thrum worked its way toward me, _‘A reminder.’_

He started to walk away. I didn’t want him to leave, I made a split-second decision and grabbed his arm. It was solid and surprisingly warm. His breath hitched. A warm glow spread from the both of us. We watched, confused. There was then a split second of blinding white light before I was yanked back.

The darkness had solidified and wrapped around my waist, unnoticed. It pulled me back into the abyss. The mysterious shade ran for me before a pool of shadows appeared beneath his feet and he fell through it.

The shadows caressed me slowly, coaxing me back into their clutches and I obliged. It wasn’t long before it returned to the familiar psychological torture, with the addition of mind-numbing pain just emphasise that, no, I cannot do that ever again. I was always a coward.

* * *

 

The next time was a complete accident.

We were both being transported through currents of darkness. I was going to my latest burden in Antarctica, there was an explorer, the only one of his expedition that would make it. Not anymore. I saw a red glow speeding toward me. At first, I thought it was a reminder of who I was going to kill, but then it became too bright. It was then that I saw a fluorescent green light emitting from my chest, right over where my heart should be.

I panicked; thinking of the years of torture associated with him. I willed the shadows to move me in a separate direction, and they did. But I couldn’t help myself. I looked back at the red, upon seeing it, my mind switched to the euphoria I felt when we touched.

The current was a lot harder to move then, but I managed it. They felt surprisingly weak under my will. Instead of shrinking away as they wanted me to, I reached out. To my surprise, he had done the same. Our hands clasped around each other and the momentum from travelling quickly in opposite directions made our bodies collide with too much force.

An explosion of white light burned through the darkness. Then we were falling.

I felt cold. What happened? I clung to him and he did the same. Eventually we hit the ground. I felt myself disintegrate on impact.

Everything was hazy, I felt delirious from the sudden stop.  Without meaning to I let out an anguished wail and I felt something flinch near me.

_Him._

My breathing grew haggard as I put together what had happened, what we had done. I couldn’t form any coherent sentences the way I was, so I put myself back together, bit by bit. It was agonisingly slow, but I managed it.

He was there when I was done, I could almost feel him watching me. It made me wonder whether he had disintegrated at all.

Tearing my eyes from him, I tried to gage my surroundings. There was nothing but ridges and ditches of pure white. There was more white in this place then I had ever seen, more white than the top of the northernmost mountain I used to go when I was… alive, I guess.

“Well, hello sir.” He jumped at the sound of my voice.

His jaw dropped, a horrifying sight really, but I couldn’t care less when he smirked, “I can see that you practised.”

If I could’ve smiled there is no doubt that I would have, but as it stands, I just made a contented noise in its place. “Are you proud?”

“I’m not the one who taught you. But I’m proud of you for you.”

“That makes sense.” Sarcasm practically dripping from my voice.

He caught on and punched my shoulder. Sparks flew. I looked at him again. He was staring at where his hand met my shoulder. He caught my gaze. A smile worked its way onto his lips, “Be quiet, you scoundrel.”

We stood in silence for a while, just staring at each other like we hadn’t before. He was staring at my face, a frown etched on his own.

“What?”

His head flickered, as if he were pulled out of a trance. “There are just odd markings on your face…”

“You have markings on your face as well, isn’t it just a feature of what we are?”

He was staring again, his voice sounded flat when he practically whispered, “Not like yours.” His head snapped up again. When he spoke again, his voice sounded slightly garbled and uncomfortable. “Look directly into it.”

“Into wh-” Before I could finish, he grabbed my hands awkwardly, as if compelled by an outward force. The white light came back, but instead of the euphoria I expected, it hurt. My hands felt like they were searing off wherever he was touching them.

I was tempted to pull my hands away, but he held fast. He repeated, “Look directly into it.”

It seemed odd that his voice could carry over the reaction happening between us, but I dismissed it. Looking back, letting go then could have saved a lot of pain. Not all of what I would endure, but a lot.

I no longer had retinas, so I didn’t have to worry about blinding myself, but that wasn’t what was making me hesitate. It was bright, very bright; I don’t think I’d ever seen anything like this before, past life or current.

What I saw confused me.

There were four figures sat in a circle surrounded by markings on stone tablets. From what I could see, they were in a cave with a small skylight shining a beam directly into the centre. Without warning, one stood. The figure was unidentifiable from what I could see, but I could hear its faint voice, it was chanting something in Latin. The sound of the language alone made me squirm, I much preferred English, since _they_ seemed to have a strong dislike of it, and would only speak to me in that form. At the last undiscernible word, the figure’s head flew back at an angle that was not healthy. I gasped. It took a few seconds before a pool of liquid that was as bright as the light I was dumbly staring into seeped from all of the figure’s orifices. It was terrifyingly hypnotic to look at. The liquid pooled at its feet and flowed along small indents in the stone it was standing on towards the centre of the circle.

If that wasn’t chilling enough, the figure next to it - one that looked to be composed of darkness – stood as well, its gaze did not waver from the figure oozing light as it started chanting, but this time I could tell it was Greek. This seemed much darker, much less organised and much more powerful than the last. I was staring at the figure in wonder and anticipation before its head flew back at a velocity that I was sure could break a neck. The pure darkness that escaped from this figure was unrivalled, it had a strange blue tint that added to the eerie silence that surrounded the entire cavern as soon as it flowed, leaving the figure a heaving and skeletal mess.

I should have been focusing on the next figure standing, I knew. But I couldn’t take my gaze away from the mass of blackness that was reshaping itself to form a structure that was close to a throne. I was watching the images intently, suddenly looking for the liquid the first figure had emitted, but it was nowhere to be seen, the darkness had shot up the light as quickly as a human could blink and was choking the first figure. The third stopped chanting and the fourth stood. They were all shouting, but I couldn’t hear a word that was being said.

The darkness in the centre spasmed, tendrils flying out and knocking the second out of the circle. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought, _‘That should have disrupted the ritual.’_ But the darkness continued to grow and grow. Finally I felt his hand squeeze my own before the third screamed. Then I realised that the third figure and he were screaming in union.

The fourth scrambled away before the dark mass exploded.

His hand was wrenched away from my own and I was thrown back, the dark mass had come through the light and was swallowing it all. I couldn’t get away. I heard a guttural cry and saw him lurching toward me. I tried to do the same, but I was too weak. I was sucked in, back to my personal hell.

* * *

 

_ Present. _

I awoke with a start. My chest was heaving and my gnarled fingers clawed at my face as if it would make the bad thoughts go away.

I hadn’t thought about him in a long time. He was always there, but I couldn’t bear to bring him back to the surface in so much detail. He was something that I was too weak to think about again. After those two times, I never saw him again. I saw others since then, obviously, but not him…

I was so caught up in the past that I didn’t notice the reason for my awakening. It was the other one. The one that Luke would bring with him, but would never speak to me, opting to speak to the guards instead. There were none now, of course, they sealed off the dungeons from the rest of the garrison, deeming it unsafe to even be anywhere near the door, let alone down here.

And yet, here he is.

His eyes were fiery, he opened the door to my cell without hesitation and stated, “I need your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for not updating for almost two months. 
> 
> Procrastination is a fickle friend, let me tell you. (I should be revising for mock exams...) 
> 
> I also lost a bit of motivation for this story, so don't expect great things soon. But I have intentions of finishing, don't worry (she says, as she has literally nothing planned for the next chapter except one sentence). 
> 
> The thing is, I want people to stay and read this story, but I'm not very good at marketing. Apparently. 
> 
> So, if you've made it this far in this unedited mess, I applaud you for not leaving. 
> 
> And thank you for reading. :)


	6. I can't think of an edgy title: Alexandria.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ♪ I ♪  
> ♪ Don't ♪  
> ♪ Know ♪  
> ♪ What ♪  
> ♪ I'm ♪  
> ♪ Doing~~~~~~~~~♪

** [?] **

Whales can hear and make sounds below 20Hz, called infra sound. We can detect these sounds with special equipment called sonars.

So that begs the question; what else can make sounds that low? Are there creatures deep beneath the Earth’s surface that can make these sounds but we can’t hear them because longitudinal waves can’t travel as well through solid as liquid?

This question is answerable by humans, but we don’t try. Why? Because we already believe that we’ve got that figured out, I mean, what other explanation is there? Evidence from P-waves and S-waves suggest that the layers of the Earth are what they are. So the answer to a creature of some sentience living at the centre of the Earth?

Absolutely fucking crazy. Nothing could stand that amount of heat and pressure. Definitely not something larger than a bacterium and able to make sounds below human hearing range. Not to mention that as far as we know the mantle is molten rock and would have no available oxygen for respiration, or sunlight for photosynthesis, so definitely no life down there.

And yet, what do we know? The Mariana Trench exists, the Kola Superdeep borehole gave us readings that we didn’t expect, like water impossibly far underground, maybe enough for a type of photosynthesis that doesn’t require the green wavelength of sunlight, or any sunlight? Making the oxygen problem non-applicable. Yet, all of this is theoretical and can be disproven at any minute due to a new discovery. So, what else can we come up with that could be true?

Apparently fucking anything.

I’m being dragged by my ankles into the pit of darkness that swirled in the floor of my lab, I can see bodies – my colleague’s bodies – falling in the pit, each one slipped from my memory as they fell through. I was terrified, this went against _everything_ that I had researched for. _Everything_ that had been at the centre of my life for the last decade. I shouted in defiance and scrabbled for something to hold onto. I grabbed a table leg in the hopes that its higher mass would prevent me from falling.

No such luck. The force pulling me towards the hole was stronger than the friction and weight of the table, so it moved with me. I realised that if it came with me through the hole, I would definitely be crushed under the weight of the table. I had to let go.

So I let the force drag me through the hole.

* * *

 

** Brian. **

Smitty was taking us on a wild ride. He was the best at portals in his apprentice group, no doubt. But Evan or even Brock could create a better portal than that sack of turbulent shit. As soon as I got out I threw up behind a bunch of bushes.

I heard Brock sigh and address Smitty, “You know that adding anything at the end of an incantation messes it up right?” He sounded queasy. I hacked out a cough and I could hear the sympathetic noises coming from them.

“Yeah,” Luke chimed in, “Who the fuck says ‘yeet’ after they open a portal?” He didn’t sound that shaken by the portal, what an asshole.

“Okay! Fine! Jeez, I was just making it a bit more fun. I didn’t know Brian had such a weak stomach.” I turned around in time to see him gesture at me in the bushes.

“Hey, fuck you! I don’t have a weak stomach! You shouldn’t add shit to the end of your incantations you Canadian fuck.” I quickly defended. I was never one to take anyone’s shit.

Smitty looked at me and sheepishly muttered, “Fuck off, Irish prick.” He kicked the ground childishly.

I was still fuming and was about to retort when Luke butts in, “You guys know that we have to be somewhere?”

Smitty nods and leaps in the direction of the road, all of his energy seemed to flow right back in him. There weren’t many people, save for a guy taking pictures of the graffiti on the walls of what looked like a college. Smitty whistled and looked at the graffiti on the walls, “Yo! That looks dope!”

The guy taking a picture glared at us as we walked past and Smitty, probably wanting to avoid the confrontation, sprinted to the end of the road. He quickly turned the corner before we could comprehend what happened.

Not wanting to lose our guide, we took off after him, leaving the graffiti guy muttering some probably not nice things about us in Arabic. Smitty was already halfway down the road around the corner, checking his phone. He texted something and then looked at us and beckoned for us to hurry up impatiently as if he hadn’t just left us in the dust. I rolled my eyes and followed the other guys to catch up to him.

Alexandria is a cool place. Well, it’s not cool, it’s hot, because we’re in Egypt, but you know what I mean. It’s got a load of history on every corner, and if you’re me; someone that studied Alexandria until their eyes hurt, it’s pretty fucking awesome. I see an outdoor museum on the way there that I take note of. There’s no way I’m passing up an opportunity to go in there. Even though I probably know everything there is to see in there. But, whatever, let me have this.

At one point we have to drag Brock away from a plaque filled with Latin and Egyptian Hieroglyphics, he screeched, “No! I’ve almost got it!”

I yelled exasperatedly, “There’s an English translation! Read it and let’s go!” While I held onto his arm and tried to follow Smitty, who wasn’t stopping for anyone.

“But that’s just admitting defeat!” Brock yelled back, but he reluctantly agreed to keep going with a promise to come back later.

We both turned and realised that we had lost both Luke and Smitty while arguing over the plaque. We hurriedly ran in the direction of where we last saw them, which was a market. I was beginning to panic, I hated things going wrong. There were so many people in the market. You can tell that we had come to a somewhat touristy area, but it seemed like not many things had English translations, I mean, we’re not in Cairo. So, yeah, the panic was setting in.

I grabbed my hair and pulled it out of stress. Brock laid a hand on my arm and smiled reassuringly before fishing a scroll out of his satchel that only had a word in Brock’s blocky handwriting and saying clearly but a bit uncertainly; “ _Transferendum… Arab_.”

He then walks up to a random pedestrian that looks friendly enough and asks a question. The pedestrian looks taken aback that he could apparently speak Arabic, since Brock looks like the least likely person to be able to do so. The pedestrian says something back and Brock says something that sounds like, ‘shookeran’ and comes back to me.

“What did you ask him?” I ask eagerly.

Brock looked confused for a second before reaching into his bag and tearing the scroll he was using into little pieces, he put them in the front pocket of the satchel before they could combust. He looked back at me and said, “Sorry, I couldn’t understand you. I guess I have to add something to that to make me understand English while it’s still in use…” He stared at his satchel as if he were already planning how he was going to fix it. “What did you say?”

“Oh! I was asking what you asked that man.”

His head jerked back up as if he remembered something, he grabbed my forearm and immediately turned in the direction of a small restaurant. “I asked him if he had seen a white guy with a beard and a teenager on their phone together and he said that they came in here.” He gestured to the restaurant. We weaved through the throngs of people, but now I could see that there was a small percentage of people that stuck out to me as tourists, and none of them had kids. There weren’t any women out on their own either, which seemed quite backwards, but it was to be expected here.

We entered the restaurant. There was a woman in a hijab behind the counter, smiling and placing something that looked and smelled delicious on plates and handing them to a man next to her, but he just stood there and chatted for a bit. He didn’t look like he belonged at all, but you could hear that he was speaking Arabic. He was almost definitely a Caster. I guessed that he was Smitty’s friend, whats-his-name… John. I think.

I spotted Smitty and Luke making their way to the back. Brock and I followed. I snuck a glance at the menus. The characters made absolutely no sense to me but there was ‘فلافل’ and ‘ملوخية’ that seemed to be the specials according to the layout of the menus. I’ll see if I can get either of them while we’re here because I’m fucking starving.

I look up when I hear an exasperated noise coming from the woman behind the counter. The man who I presume is John had put down his tray of food, embraced Smitty and patted his back. The woman huffed and went to deliver the tray herself. Something told me that this happened more often than not. He spoke to Luke, at which point they all looked around with concern on their faces that faded as soon as Luke pointed at us walking towards them. 

Once we got there I opened my mouth, “Nice of you assholes to wait for us.”

This caused John to let out a shriek that was probably a laugh and Smitty joined in, “You guys are so fucking slow though!” He said as he cackled.

Once John had stopped laughing he beckoned us toward a table for four and dragged a chair to the end. When Brock mentioned something about working, he just brushed it off, “Nah, Samirah loves me. She hasn’t fired me yet.” He drags his chair forward slightly and places his hands on the table, “So, what do you guys want?”

I immediately started talking, pointing to the menu, “Oh, man. I thought you’d never ask. What do you recommend, since I can’t really read this?”

Smitty and Luke glared at me, while Brock was sketching something on a napkin and muttering under his breath. John smiled and started rambling, “Well, most people that come here order the falafel, because it’s the most well-known dish, yeah?” I nodded, totally encapsulated by what he was saying, “But Samirah does the best mulukhiya in Alexandria.”

I blanched. “The what? Sorry, I didn’t read up on my Islamic di-”

I was quickly interrupted by John, “Mulukhiya isn’t Islamic. It’s Egyptian.” His tone held a sharp edge that I didn’t like one bit. “Well, at least the one she makes is. She uses shrimp for the base but sometimes the fish that her broth-”

Luke was getting seriously impatient and cut John off rudely, “Okay. Brian, I know you’re hungry as shit. And John, I’m sure that shit’s very interesting, but can we please not have this conversation when there’s something we need to actually fuckin’ do?”

If Luke’s language offended John, he didn’t show it. Instead, he rolled his eyes, “Yeah, sure.” Okay. I did not trust this guy _at_ _all_. I narrowed my eyes. “So, Lu- Smitty,” he quickly changed names after a quick glance in Smitty’s direction. “Says he wants to go to the original Alexandrian Library, which is where you all wanna go, correct?” We all nodded, my neck moved stiffly. “Kay, cool.” He stated casually and sauntered up to Samirah. Leaving us to watch after him.

I glanced at Brock, who was watching John intently, pencil raised. I caught his attention and raised an eyebrow. He just shrugged and gestured, _‘Talk_ _later’_ to me. I huffed and crossed my arms across my chest before sinking down in my chair. I needed to talk to him about John, and how he’s probably fucking evil. Locking eyes with Smitty across the table, his mouth quirked into a smug smile, I stuck my tongue out at him. Childish, I know, but how else am I supposed to address it?

My gaze flickered back up to John when I heard him say something rhythmic and distinctly familiar. “ _Plumbum Sequi,”_ he whispered unsuccessfully, while crumpling something in his left hand. Samirah immediately fell into step behind John and they disappeared from sight into the back.

I immediately turned to Brock, “Did you see that? That was some shady shit!”

Smitty faced us, confused, “What? What was shady?”

I turned on Smitty, eyes wild, “He fucking cast, ‘Follow my lead.’ And then fucked off to the back with Samirah! How do we even know he’s coming back? Or if he’s trustworthy? Who the fuck is this guy?”

Smitty just sat there, expression becoming more and more concerned, “Brian, I think your mind’s playing tricks on you. I couldn’t hear a word he said and John’s legit, I swear.”

Brock placed a hand on my shoulder, forcing me to sit back down. I didn’t even realise I’d stood up. “Brian, I didn’t hear him either. I think this might be to do with that _thing_.” The _thing_ \- which was definitely not something I would like to bring up now, especially in front of Luke or Smitty - could be an explanation for it. But I’m sure. I’m fucking _sure_ that John is up to something sketchy.

I was about to say as much, when Luke quietly said, “I heard him too.” We all looked at him, his gaze dropped to the table, as if he was thinking. Then he looked up at Brock, “Do you have that invisibility scroll on hand?”

Smitty gawked when Brock obliged and pulled one out of his satchel, “Guys? Are you fucking insane? John’s a good guy! He wouldn’t-”

We weren’t listening to him. Brock informed us that he only had four and advised that we should only take one. Luke was about to take it before he faltered. He looked up at Brock, who had made a tutting noise, Brock spoke, “Not you, Luke. I already advised you against going in the portal. You know that expending a scroll for too long taps into your own energy. There’s no way you’re doing this, you just don’t have enough left.”

Luke shrunk back and retracted his hand. After Brock said it, I noticed the dark circles under his eyes and slow movements, _how did I not know before?_

Brock handed the scroll to me, “Wait! What? Why me? You’re better at… stuff than I am!” I say immediately.

Brock sighs, “No, Brian, I’m really not. Besides, I’m not the one that really wants to do this am I?”

“You guys are actually fucking doing this? Jesus fucking Christ…” Smitty butts back in. We were still ignoring him.

Luke, looking a bit dejected, swallowed his pride and reassured me. “All you have to do is eavesdrop a little bit and then catch the fucker red-handed at… whatever he’s doing.”

Smitty was still muttering, and I couldn’t care less. “Well, alright…” I unrolled the perfectly unwrinkled scroll and lowly chanted, “ _A_ _bscondere corpus meum ab extraneis_.” While making an elaborate series of gestures toward myself as marked haphazardly on the papyrus.

Brock wrinkled his nose, “You probably shouldn’t have done that in broad fucking daylight in a public place.”

“Well, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing!” I replied defensively.

Adamant, I pushed past Brock while I heard him murmer, “This is so disconcerting.” I held back a laugh and made my way to where I saw John leave with Samirah using the stealth pattern of footwork that Miss Hammar taught us at the Garrison; the only thing I’m actually good at.

I could hear a slight scuffle behind me and could only assume that Smitty was up to no good. I didn’t turn around to check. When I got to the door I realised that it was closed and that opening it would definitely cause suspicion. I cursed myself for not having thought of it. Lightly, I tested the handle of the door and pushed it open the smallest bit. I could hear voices. Brilliant. I put my head nearer to the gap to be able to discern what was being said.

“-and it just doesn’t seem worth it.” John’s voice came out loud and clear.

There was a mumbling sound and I could faintly hear the words, “Not your fault, son.” In the midst of the sounds.

John hummed affirmatively. _What is going on?_ “I trust him. Obviously. But the others don’t seem to like me. Especially the Irish one, uh, Brian.” Okay, so he was talking about my blatant mistrust. But who was ‘ _him’_? Smitty?

The mumbling came back and I could almost catch the entire sentence, “-can’t risk it. You know what happened the last time we let in other Retributioned.” _Whaaaaaaaaat?_

“I can’t let him down though. He has a right to know what’s down there as much as we did.” _Did? He already knows what’s down there? Who’s the guy he’s speaking to? The voice is too deep for Samirah…_

“Fine. I’ll allow you access. Take this.” The mumbling voice was becoming clearer to my ears. It sounded really familiar, but distorted, like three voices talking at once. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why.

Once John had presumably taken ‘ _this’_ he bade the voice a quick goodbye. Then he chanted the counter incantation to his earlier one, “ _Restituamque vobis._ A _blegarent ergo daemonia. Tres daemonia pellitis.”_

There was a gasp that must have been Samirah. A light thud sounded and I theorised that she must have hit him. “Min fadlik tawaquf ean faeal dhlk.” She spoke tiredly, like this was a common occurrence, I wish I had asked Brock for that translation thing. I don’t know a fucking word in Arabic.

Then came John’s pleading reply, “Kan daruriaan.” She sighed and John desperately spoke again, “’Aedak.”

She must have been contented by this because I heard their footsteps coming towards the door. I scrambled back from it, waiting for it to open, but I heard the hinges of a separate door instead. ‘Had I listened through two sets of doors?’ I thought to myself, before slapping my forehead and thinking that I could have just gone in if that was the case and saved myself a whole lot of guesswork.

Just as I was panicking about how I was going to get myself out of this, I spotted an unoccupied toilet with the door ajar. _Jackpot_. I rushed in with no hesitation and slammed the door enthusiastically. Not the most subtle thing I’ve ever done to be honest.

I tore the scroll in two and watched it burst into flames. I gathered up the ashes and flushed them down the toilet to get rid of the evidence of a caster being in there. Samirah might not know, or care. But John definitely would, if Smitty didn’t tell him first.

When I made it back to the table John was already there, straddling his chair and Samirah was talking to a woman who had a large box full of fish and shrimp on ice. Brock caught sight of me first and raised an eyebrow. I frowned towards John and mimicked a fish. _Fishy_. Brock sniggered at the way my mouth moved and everyone turned to look at me. Thinking quickly, I pointed to the box at the counter and didn’t offer an explanation before I sat back down. Smitty glared at me menacingly but didn’t say anything. I offered him a smug look, he turned away and continued to stare at John, who I just realised was talking.

“-no way that’ll work.” He concluded.

Brock huffed, obviously irritated by his words, “Yes, but what other option do we have? Go inside?” Then he made a face as if to say ‘Tough chance.’

A thoughtful look crossed John’s face, “Actually…”

I interrupted quickly, “Wait. What? What do you want us to do? The answer is no fucking way. Especially if I’m going with you!” I nearly yelled, gesturing towards John.

Luke joined in at that moment, completely ignoring me, “Why won’t it work?” He sounded curious but sceptical, hopefully that meant he was on my side.

John didn’t even look at me. He immediately turned to Luke and said, “If you want info, you have to go inside. An incantation to see through those walls won’t work. You are in the birthplace of Caster’s after all.”

Brock let out an indignant squawk, “B-but that’s super fucking dangerous! I don’t want anything to happen… What if all hell breaks loose?”

I jumped in, “Yeah, what if we let out the mother of demons or some shit? The final boss!” 

Smitty sniggered, “That would be awesome.”

“Not when you’re fucking dying!” I screeched, my voice going to a higher pitch than I thought possible.

“WE WON’T DIE!” John shouted over all of us, “I promise you that it _is_ safe. You just have to trust me.”

I was about to say otherwise when Brock fixed me with a look. I closed my mouth and mumbled curses under my breath. Seeing that I wasn't going to say anything, Smitty rose and clapped his hands, “Alright! We've got this settled! Let’s go, John. Lead the way to our salvation!”

John let out a soft giggle before saluting to Samirah, who rolled her eyes, and confidently marched out of the restaurant with Smitty in tow.

I couldn’t help but feel as if this wasn’t going to end well, but I reluctantly got up after everyone else anyway.

_I never even got that_ _mulukhiya_ _…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO! After a long period of writing, deleting and google-translating languages I do not know a word of (sorry if i got that wrong btw please correct me if i did) I got it done!
> 
> For reference: Samirah said; 'Please stop doing that.' and John replied; 'It was necessary. I promise.'
> 
> Honestly, this is mostly a filler chapter. I had more planned, but I got really into it and put in stuff that will make it way more interesting in the long run. So, more interesting stuff to come! At least I hope so! 
> 
> I will really try to make some kind of schedule for this, but at the moment it seems to be once every two months or so. Sorry about that. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading if you have. And I'm going to post this before I go over it for the hundredth time making changes that don't really matter! Let's goooooooooo...

**Author's Note:**

> OK! This was my first time writing something like this. I've already planned most of the story, or at least the lore to an extent, so any feedback is immensely appreciated. I would just like to warn you now that I am not the best person when it comes to keeping up with deadlines and shit, so... sorry if you wanted this to be regular.
> 
> I don't know if anyone would even like to read this, but here goes! 
> 
> There are no ships yet. I do have a few ideas, although this may end up being a ship-free book. More or less. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading!


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